This invention relates to musical instruments of the stringed kind. By way of example, the invention is applicable to musical instruments such as the violin, viola, cello, bass, guitar and mandolin. It will be convenient, however, to hereinafter describe the invention with particular reference to violins.
Violin manufacture is a highly specialised art requiring the use of special timbers and the application of special skills which require many years to achieve. As a consequence, the violins of only a few manufacturers are recognised as satisfactory for use by concert musicians, and those violins are extremely expensive. Even violins of lesser quality, however, are expensive because of the care and time involved in their manufacture.
The quality of sound derived from a particular violin is largely dependent on the skill with which certain components have been manufactured and installed, as well as the materials chosen for their manufacture. A violin, as well as the majority of other instruments to which the invention relates, includes a sound box, which, amongst other components, includes top and bottom plates. Due to the construction of the traditional violin, the sound box is subjected to tensile and compressive load, and bending loads, and the top and bottom plates are forced to move in a very complex manner when activated by the strings of the instrument and all of this movement contributes to the sound quality of the instrument. For this reason, correct selection of the timber used in the manufacture of those plates is very critical. The standard manufacturing dimensions of violins have been perfected over a period of 400 years and those dimensions apply to produce satisfactory results only if a timber of a very specific kind is used. The type of timber has always been in limited supply, but it is now becoming increasingly difficult to secure and that which is available is often of poor quality or inadequately seasoned. It is also very expensive.
Stringed musical instruments of the kind to which the invention relates also include a bridge support for the strings, that supports the strings above the sound box. Traditionally, a bridge is formed from timber and includes decorative carvings and/or cutouts. Traditional bridges further include a pair of feet which are fashioned to sit flush against the top surface of the top plate and are held in position against that surface by the string tension, which imposes a downward force on the bridge towards the top plate. Vibration from the strings is transmitted through the feet of the bridge to the top plate which moves in response to the vibrations and it is normal for one of the feet of the bridge to be positioned over a sound post, which is located inside the sound box extending between the top and bottom plates thereof, so that vibration is also transmitted to the bottom plate.
In a typical construction of a bridge, the feet have a relatively broad engagement area with the top plate, and that broad engagement area, along with the string tension force pressing the feet into engagement with the top plate, tends to prevent relative movement between the feet and the top plate. The bridge however, can undergo movement under the influence of loads experienced for example, when the tension of one or more of the strings is altered for tuning purposes, or as a result of downward pressure exerted by a bow on one or more strings, and that movement is generally a bending movement. The bending movement can affect the transmission of string vibration through the bridge, and in extreme cases, the bridge can fail. Accordingly, most bridges are constructed to have a gradually diminishing thickness from adjacent the feet to the top, string supporting edge and in this manner, bending movement of the bridge can be minimised, because a substantial portion of the bridge can be of a thickness suitable to resist the forces that promote such bending, while still retaining acceptable sound quality because the critical portions of the bridge, ie. adjacent the string supporting edge, are maintained at a thickness that vibrate sufficiently under string activation. Bridges of this kind however, are not generally good transmitters of high frequency vibrations, which are desirable for high quality sound, and are still subject to some bending, albeit reduced.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a stringed musical instrument that produces reasonable to higher quality sound, which may be manufactured at a significantly reduced costs compared to instruments manufactured by traditional methods and which enables the use of materials of a less expensive nature than those traditionally used. A further object of the invention is to provide an assembly for a stringed musical instrument that facilitates releasable attachment of a sound box thereto, so that sound boxes of different quality can be attached to the assembly. A still further object of the invention is to provide a bridge which can be manufactured to produce reasonable to high quality sound at reduced cost compared to traditional bridges.
According to the present invention there is provided an assembly for a stringed musical instrument, said assembly including an elongate neck to which one of a string of the instrument can be anchored and a structural member depending from said neck, said structural member being substantially aligned with the lengthwise extent of said neck and extending in the opposite direction thereto so as to overlie a sound box to which in use, the assembly is connected, and being arranged to cooperate with and to bear string tension load of a string arrangement applied to said assembly.
The load bearing capacity of the structural member is preferably such as to eliminate or substantially reduce the load on the sound box due to string tension. In such an arrangement, the material from which the sound box is constructed can be chosen with greater emphasis on the musical characteristics required from the instrument and not the mechanical characteristics required to bear the tension load. Thus, a less complex shape can be adopted and less expensive materials can be used in the construction of the sound box while still maintaining a sound quality of acceptable standard.
An instrument according to the invention will typically have a neck which extends from adjacent the sound box to a position at which the strings are anchored. In such an instrument, the structural member preferably extends from the neck to the opposite end of the sound box and is preferably in the form of an elongate member, which extends across the sound box, preferably in a plane substantially parallel to the top plate. The member can be a rod which is solid or tubular and made of any suitable material. It can alternatively take other forms, such as a plurality of rods or struts. Preferably, the member is highly rigid and lightweight, such as a tubular aluminium or plastic construction.
The member can be fixed to the neck in any suitable manner and in one preferred arrangement, an opening is provided to receive a locating portion of the member. That opening may be formed in any suitable manner and conveniently, in an instrument in which a finger board extends along the neck, such as a violin, the opening may be formed between the finger board and the neck. This is particularly convenient in an instrument in which the finger board is formed separately from the neck.
In the above arrangement, the neck is typically set at an angle to the plane of the top plate of the sound box and in that arrangement, the member may also include a locating portion which extends at that angle, relative to the remaining or major portion of the member.
The strings, or a string arrangement, engages the member at a position remote from the neck connection, so as to cause the rod to bear the string tension. A string arrangement may for example, take the form of that typically provided in a violin, in which the ends of the strings remote from the neck are connected, sometimes adjustably, to a tail piece, which is normally made of wood, and which itself is anchored (in a traditional violin) to the sound box by suitable fastening means. In the assembly of the invention, the strings or the string assembly may be directly fastened to the member, or may be fastened to a different part of the assembly or instrument when fully assembled (such as the sound box), but still be in engagement with the member to transfer tension load thereto. Preferably the engagement position is at the distal end of the rod and that end may be suitably configured, or be provided with suitable engagement means for that purpose.
The invention advantageously facilitates an arrangement in which different sound boxes can be releasably attached to the assembly so that assemblies need not be manufactured for a specific sound box. This reduces the overall cost of an instrument. Also, it reduces the cost of maintenance and repair and facilitates adoption of non-traditional materials.
An assembly according to the invention includes a neck and a structural member extending from the neck and defines a position for attachment of a sound box to the assembly. The sound box can be releasably attached to the assembly in any suitable manner and in a preferred arrangement attachment of the sound box to the assembly is facilitated at two positions, the first being adjacent the neck and the second being at a position opposite the neck. The attachment means may take any suitable for, such as threaded fasteners, pins, clips etc.
The assembly may include a bridge for supporting the strings above the sound box and that bridge may be of a traditional kind or of a kind according to the invention. Preferably, the bridge may be partly supported by the structural member, with the arrangement being such as to facilitate transmission of string vibration to the top plate of the sound box. In one form, the assembly is arranged so that the structural member overlies the sound box top plate when the sound box is fitted to the assembly and the bridge is supported on the structural member, with a pair of feet extending from the bridge into contact with the top plate. One of the feet is preferably located over the sound post of the sound box.
In one form, the structural member is an elongate rod and the bridge includes a first component which is fixed to the rod in the longitudinal direction thereof, and a second component which is fixed to the first component in a direction substantially perpendicular thereto. The second component may engage the top plate of the sound box, such as by way of feet extending into that engagement, and may include means to facilitate pivoting movement of a third component which is upstanding from the second component and which includes a string supporting surface. That pivoting movement may be provided by a bridge support according to the invention as hereinafter described.
The present invention further provides a bridge for a stringed musical instrument, said bridge including first and second parts which are pivotable relative to one another.
A bridge of the above kind has several advantages over known bridges. In particular, such a bridge is less prone to bending, because of the available pivotal movement between the two parts. That is, instead of a distortion of the bridge occurring by bending, the two parts can pivot relative to one another while substantially remaining free from bending distortion, so that the bridge is less prone to breakage and vibration transmission through the bridge is relatively undisturbed.
The two parts of the bridge may be integrally formed and may pivot about a pivot region therebetween, such as a region of reduced thickness, but preferably, the parts are separately formed to be assembled together in a manner which facilitates the pivoting movement. In one preferred arrangement, the first of the two parts includes an edge surface for supporting engagement of the instrument strings and, according to conventional construction, that edge surface may include notches or grooves for locating the strings against that surface and may be arcuately formed laterally, relative to the longitudinal direction of the strings. The second of the two parts is arranged to be fixed to the top plate of the second box of the instrument in a permanently or releasably fixed manner and may include feet that engage the top plate in a spaced-apart manner, one of which can be positioned in use, over the sound post which may be located internally of the sound box.
In the above arrangement, the second part can include means to locate the first part pivotably thereto. That locating means can take any suitable form, and in one preferred form, the locating means includes a laterally extending groove for receiving a lower edge of the first part. While additional locating means may also be employed, in this arrangement, the string pressure imposed on the string engaging surface may be sufficient to maintain the lower edge within the groove, so as to maintain the two parts in engagement.
The first part can be formed in any suitable manner, but advantageously, given the reduced need to resist bending by its pivotal engagement with the second part, it can be formed of a substantially constant thickness although it can equally be formed to have varying thickness, if that results in a more desirable sound. As described earlier, the string engaging surface is preferably arcuate, laterally of the longitudinal direction of the instrument strings and that surface preferably extends between opposite side edges that are preferably straight. However, the side edges may be inclined, or alternatively may be curved or otherwise shaped.
As known in the art, the arcuate string engaging surface distributes the strings across the surface at different heights to facilitate contact of the bow with separate strings, while the provision of straight edged sides is considered to provide better string vibration transmission through the first part to the second part, although that may be influenced by the type of strings employed, ie traditional animal gut strings, or steel or synthetic strings.
The first part according to the above arrangement also includes a lower edge extending between the side edges and that edge is preferably straight or includes a relief between the side edges, such as a concave relief. In a preferred arrangement, the lower edge is formed by a pair of feet spaced apart on either side of a concave relief. Formed in this manner, transmission of string vibration can be through the feet, which can be located over the feet of the second part, as may be provided.
The bridge can be formed of any suitable material and the first part can be formed to have a thickness through at least a substantial portion of its height which is substantially reduced compared to known bridges. For example, the first part of the bridge can be formed from plastics, carbon fibre, kevlar, or plywood and can have a thickness to about 1.5 mm. The material chosen and the dimensions in which it is constructed, can be tailored to suit different sound requirements and, when formed separately from the second part, the first part can be formed of a different material to the second part and can be replaced as necessary for changing conditions or particular sound characteristics desired. The second part can be formed from a variety of different materials, such as timber of the traditional kind, or of non-traditional materials, such as plastics.